Have pity, pity, friends, have pity on me, Thus much at least, may it please you, of your grace! I lie not under hazel or hawthorn-tree Down in this dungeon ditch, mine exile's place By leave of God and fortune's foul disgrace. Girls, lovers, glad young folk and newly wed, Jumpers and jugglers, tumbling heel o'er head, Swift as a dart, and sharp as needle-ware, Throats clear as bells that ring the kine to shed, Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there? Singers that sing at pleasure, lawlessly, Light, laughing, gay of word and deed, that race And run like folk light-witted as ye be And have in hand nor current coin nor base, Ye wait too long, for now he's dying apace. Rhymers of lays and roundels sung and read, Ye'll brew him broth too late when he lies dead. Nor wind nor lightning, sunbeam nor fresh air, May pierce the thick wall's bound where lies his bed; Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there? O noble folk from tithes and taxes free, Come and behold him in this piteous case, Ye that nor king nor emperor holds in fee, But only God in heaven; behold his face Who needs must fast, Sundays and holidays, Which makes his teeth like rakes; and when he hath fed With never a cake for banquet but dry bread, Must drench his bowels with much cold watery fare, With board nor stool, but low on earth instead; Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there? Princes afore-named, old and young foresaid, Get me the king's seal and my pardon sped, And hoist me in some basket up with care: So swine will help each other ill bested, For where one squeaks they run in heaps ahead. Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there? THE EPITAPH IN FORM OF A BALLAD WHICH VILLON MADE FOR HIMSELF AND HIS COMRADES, EXPECTING TO BE HANGED ALONG WITH THEM Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, you see, And here the flesh that all too well we fed Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred, And we the bones grow dust and ash withal; Let no man laugh at us discomforted, But pray to God that he forgive us all. If we call on you, brothers, to forgive, Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we Were slain by law; ye know that all alive Have not wit alway to walk righteously; Make therefore intercession heartily With him that of a virgin's womb was bred, That his grace be not as a dry well-head For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall; We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead, But pray to God that he forgive us all.